


Step Three: Setting Your Boundaries

by pinkpop



Series: A Guide to Honeytrapping: The Art of Screwing the Bad Guy [3]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Jack being Jack, but also being nice, going steady (ish), shame hes in love with a spy huh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:40:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25963750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkpop/pseuds/pinkpop
Summary: Reader is beginning to win Jack over. But he's winning her over, too. This was not part of the plan.
Relationships: Handsome Jack (Borderlands)/Reader
Series: A Guide to Honeytrapping: The Art of Screwing the Bad Guy [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796794
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	Step Three: Setting Your Boundaries

Admittedly, ignoring Jack’s calls in retaliation for being left high and unsatisfyingly dry is not the most mature way you could be handling the situation. But after he’d dropped you like a hot bag of skag crap and ran off with his weird little Hyperion butler with no more than a “see you later,” you’re not much in the mood to talk to him.  
And it does feel awfully good to piss him off.  
To be honest, you highly doubt Jack’s ever been ignored in his life. I mean, looking like that, he’s hardly missable. Those cheekbones alone would earn him an unlimited use ticket to a variety of bedrooms, so it’s hard to imagine that he’s used to being turned down; especially by the likes of a lowly Pandoran such as yourself. He really doesn’t like this new-found thing called 'rejection,' that’s for sure. He’s called you three times today already. It’s 8 in the bloody morning.  
“Alright, I’m calling one more time to see if you’re okay since you’ve obviously been kidnapped by bandits,” comes his voice again. You roll your eyes and pull on your sweater. “I mean, why else would you not respond to my calls, right? I’m Handsome Jack - people always respond to my calls. So either you’ve had that pretty little throat slit or you’ve misunderstood how important I am.” There's a brief pause, followed by a sigh. “Just… answer me back when you get the chance, alright? I got some free time later… I wanna see you.”  
In a hurry, you’ve already shoved your feet into your shoes and grabbed a quick piece of pizza from Moxxi’s on your way past by the time Jack hangs up in defeat. There’s a little part of you that still begs for you to answer him, the same part that lights up a little as soon as you hear his voice come through your echo. But the need to punish him for leaving you in the corridor of the apartment building is greater.  
“Don’t forget that job you’re supposed to be doing,” Princess Lilith calls down from the balcony of her tower as you fly through the centre of town. She hasn't left that building in weeks, so lord knows why she's feeling like it's okay to order you around. “We need those _'cupcakes'_ we briefed you about.”  
You wave a hand at her in acknowledgement, holding your pizza slice between your teeth as you tug on your jacket. Those damn codes are starting to get on your nerves. Granted, whatever weaponry Jack has stashed away is sure to be a knockout once the Raiders have hold of it, but you’d really love to be able to screw Jack in peace without your brain throwing ideas about super boring passcodes at you right before the big finish, y’know?  
The reminder of Jack has your gut turning somersaults. It might be anger, it might be arousal. Honestly, it’s hard to tell the difference when Handsome Jack is involved. You don’t really know why you want to make him feel bad. Hell, you don’t even know why it upset you so much when he left you in that apartment. It just did. You stupidly thought you were getting somewhere with him; that maybe him opening up about his relationship problems with Lynchwood’s resident Head Case meant that maybe he liked you. I mean, that’s important… for the plan, obviously.  
But maybe you _want_ him to like you? Maybe you just like the idea of being wanted by someone.  
By him?  
Either way, that nut job of a sheriff, Nisha, is welcome to him for the moment. And if it makes you feel better, she’s the budget version of you anyways, babes. You’ve got class and appeal and witty intellect. I don’t really know what he sees in her besides the kinks and the dress sense. I mean, she’s the last person you’d ever want in a position of sheriff, if you ask me. Definitely not community-spirited. Obviously Jack doesn’t know what he’s missing out on, and any kind drunk girl in the bathroom at a college party would tell you the same thing; God’s honest truth. But if crazy sex with a generic hot chick who lets him indulge in all his weirdness is the only thing Jack’s after, then he’ll do just fine with her until you decide he’s worthy of eating at the Big Boy table again.

Spending your mornings out in the wilderness has always been a ritual habit of yours, but it’s never felt quite this refreshing. You can feel the early morning breeze blowing the stress away, the pale blue light of dawn washing everything in a calming hue of purple-blue that makes Pandora seem a lot less ugly than it often is.  
You’re in the Highlands, right next to the city of Opportunity, sat on top of the same old Hyperion storage shed at the bottom of the bridge that you always sit on while you watch the daylight creep into the sky. Swinging your legs back and forth with one recently snaffled earbud plugged into your ear, you’re mostly oblivious to someone climbing up onto the roof of the shed behind you.  
That is until they sit next to you, dangling their legs over the edge beside yours.  
“Jesus f... oh,” you sigh, “ _you_ again.”  
“You would not believe how hard I’ve tried to get a hold of you, pumpkin,” Jack says, smirking. “Coulda sworn you were dead. But you look as alive and sexy as ever - even if you do look like a weirdly hot librarian in that old sweater - so you wanna tell me why you’ve been ignoring me? ‘Cause the whole ‘wait for three days before calling back’ thing only really works on teenagers.”  
“And judging by how hard you’re breathing after climbing up here, you’re definitely far from a teenager,” you tell him.  
“Wow, insults,” Jack chuckles. “That’s real cute, cupcake. You wanna explain to me why I’ve been demoted from screwing you on my couch to being berated by you on my own front doorstep?”  
“You _didn’t_ screw me on your couch,” you say, looking ahead at the vast expanse of water that encompasses the city in the distance. “You were about to, but then I guess you found something less boring than little old me and decided I wasn’t worth the effort.”  
“Ohhh, so you’re pissed that nobody’s made you queen yet, huh?” he asks, smiling.  
Your heart stutters. God, why are you so turned on by him being condescending towards you? Maybe you should talk to someone about that.  
“I’m pissed that you dropped me without a second thought after I specifically told you that I wanted to be more than just another floozy.”  
Oddly enough, that’s not a lie. The being pissed off thing, of course. Even remembering the way he strode down that corridor with his little gremlin of a man-servant makes you wanna curb stomp him in the fun factory. If it weren’t for the job you have to do, you’d smack the ghost out of him in all honesty. Those codes are the only thing standing between him and involuntary sterilisation. They’ve been more trouble than they’re probably worth by this point and you haven’t even heard a whisper of them yet, let alone seen them with your own two eyes. Lilith had better be right on this otherwise you’re growing to… like?.... Handsome Jack for absolutely no reason.  
And no; fantastic sex is not a good enough reason to like a supervillain. No matter how firm his grip is.  
Jack lets out a soft, shallow sigh and looks out at the calm, still ocean. Although it’s less than convincing, he humours you with an apology. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t want you around,” he says, sounding the words out like a teenager who definitely does not feel like he did anything wrong in the slightest.  
“You’re a dick,” you mutter.  
“But you don’t mind that,” he says. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone through the effort of sneaking into my office just to screw me.” You don’t answer him. The silence drags on for a few moments. “I think you like me being a dick,” Jack states.  
“I like you being a dick to anyone else but me,” you lie. “I want you to treat _me_ with respect.”  
Jack snorts. “Yes ma’am,” he teases, leaning back on his hands. He kicks his legs back and forth and you can’t help but notice a speckle of blood on his jeans. Not long past 8 in the morning and he’s already killed someone? Where this man gets his energy from, you do not know. Still, the idea has that strange feeling whirling in your chest again. The tingling sizzles through your gut and you resist the urge to roll your eyes and groan. Betrayed by your own body. _Mutiny._  
“You know,” Jack drawls. “If sensitive is what you want, I can definitely do that.”  
“Sensitive goes against your DNA,” you say, doubtfully. “And that’s not necessarily what I want from you.”  
“Then what do you want, kitten?”  
“I was gonna say that I want you to treat me as an equal, rather than a play thing, but then you called me 'kitten' and I just now decided that I want you to call me 'kitten' more often instead.”  
Jack chuckles, his smile reaching his eyes. The way he swings his legs back and forth over the edge of the roof makes him look like anything but a vicious dictator. It’s strange, seeing these sides of him; the more gleeful, fun-loving ones that almost drown out the scent of cigarette smoke and the faint smudge of blood on the collar of his shirt.  
“But maybe I could use a taste of that sensitivity, after all,” you try, nibbling the inside of your cheek. “If you’re still offering.”  
Jack turns to look at you and his eyes dip to your lips briefly before taking the rest of you in. He’s smiling; the subconscious kind of smile that he doesn't notice himself showing. It’s different to the engineered one he uses in propaganda footage or when he’s speaking to the masses in one of his planet-wide announcements. He’s completely unaware of it, which is a shame because it’s beautiful.  
With the smoothest motion you’ve ever seen - which shouldn’t take you by surprise anymore, honestly - Jack moves in slowly for a kiss. It’s so gentile that you wonder for a moment if it’s actually Jack you’re kissing. He’s twisted to face you - one behind you, propping him up as he leans forward, and the other cupping your face. His lips are dry but soft and it’s all you can do to not nip at him with your teeth. He’d love it, for sure.  
His hand moves away from your cheek, leaving the biting chill of the ocean air to nip at your skin in its absence, and instead favours your waist as a good a place as any to rest his palm. Warm fingers graze the skin that hides under the hem of your sexy librarian sweater and they wiggle their way up towards your ribs, raising goosebumps on your arms and shoulders.  
You should stop him. Leave him hanging; wanting more. It would be sweet revenge if nothing else and you gotta treat ‘em mean to keep ‘em keen.  
For a moment you can’t bring yourself to do it. You’re too wrapped up in the idea of warm hands and soft hair and the enigmatic charm that oozes from him in buckets. But you give yourself to the count of three - focusing on the people back in Sanctuary, the ones that are relying on you not to slip up - and then you pull away.  
You’re here for those armoury codes, nothing else.  
“We should take it slow,” you say, watching him wet his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. “I think I’d prefer it like that.”  
Jack nods. “Yeah, alright,” he says. “But do me a favour and keep this quiet, sweetheart. Last thing I need is my trigger-happy girlfriend finding out I’ve been putting my finger in other honey pots.”  
“You’re burning my home planet to the ground,” you say, straightening out your sweater. “Most of my friends have dead parents because of you. I’m not planning on telling any of them that I’m fucking you.”  
“Language.”  
“Right,” you smirk, “because you can strangle as many people to death as you like, but swearing is just immoral.”  
Jack smiles, leans in just close enough for you to feel the warmth radiating off him. It's like a drug; it's in your skin, now. “Not immoral," he says. "Just low class.”  
“You calling me low class? Because that would mean you have low class standards since you just willingly had your tongue in my mouth.”  
“I have impeccable taste,” Jack scoffs, puffing his chest out a little.  
“Yeah, yeah,” you grin.  
Yup. Just the codes.  
Only the codes.

The sound of sweet, sweet nothing filtering in through the open balcony in Jack’s apartment feels like a dream come true.  
The white chiffon curtains billow in the evening breeze; a sign of Jack’s opulence and love of all things regal. The only people who still use curtains are the poor people who can't afford metal shutters, but Jack doesn't own these floating swaths of fabric as a necessity; he owns them because they're old fashioned. It's a statement of wealth and eccentricity.  
The sun has warmed the land all day and that warmth lingers as the sun begins to set behind the Highlands and it’s all too easy to get lost in the cushy velvet luxury of his sofa.  
Jack clears his throat and you peer at him over the top edge of your book.  
He’s ditched most of his layers on the armchair on the other side of the coffee table and now wears his raggedy Hyperion shirt loudly and proudly, despite the uncharacteristic holes and general shabbiness of it. His hair is beginning to fall out of place and he’s wiggling his bare toes in the shaggy rug while he flicks through his paperwork on the coffee table; his shoes left by the front door in a heap.  
He risks a quick glance at you out of the corner of his eye and fixes his stare back on his paperwork when he finds you looking at him.  
“Can I help you?” you ask.  
Jack feigns surprise like he didn’t just try to get your attention to begin with and looks at you with a smile. With a groan, he stretches his back out until it pops and slumps back on the sofa with a soft _oof._ Just a few days ago you were both spreading skin cells and bodily fluids all over this settee and now you’re reading books and doing paperwork together like an old married couple. It’s nice.  
“What’re you reading?” Jack asks quietly, picking at the seam in the fabric of the sofa cushion.  
“If I told you it was about ludonarrative dissonance would you think I’m sexy smart?”  
Jack pulls back slightly like somebody just cobbed at him, his brows drawn into a sharp frown. “I already think you’re sexy smart,” he says.  
You flash him a grin. “Okay good because it’s just a dumb gas station romance.”  
“So you just pulled ludo-whatever-nance from your ass?” he asks.  
“Yup.”  
"Is it a real thing?"  
"Yup."  
Jack tilts his head at you and cocks an eyebrow like he’s figuring something out. That subconscious smile is back in the shape of a smirk and you’re beginning to feel a little like a petri dish in one of the swanky labs he’s got up on Helios, being studied by a very attractive and slightly psychopathic scientist who wears a little too much cologne by normal peoples' standards.  
“You have the uncanny ability of making me feel super dumb in comparison to you,” Jack admits, “and I dunno if it makes me wanna screw you or kill you.”  
“Maybe it’s both.”  
“No, no.” Jack shakes his head. “Handsome Jack isn’t indecisive. I know what I want at all times.”  
You place the book in your lap and close it around your finger. Everything about the man looking back at you is different than the one Pandora usually sees and you wonder if Lilith or the Raiders have ever seen him look so… docile. If they had, would they still think he’s a monster? No doubt he is, but there’s clearly another, well-hidden side to this beast. His scruffy t-shirt and bare feet and the mountain of dull paperwork scattered across his coffee table scream the exact opposite of “evil dictator.” But you know that's what he is. You know both sides of him are true.  
“And what do you want, Mr High-Roller?” you ask, mouth quirked into the smallest of smiles. You flick your hair out of your face and tilt your head to mirror him. “You want a fast and exciting life with your sheriff girlfriend?” Jack wrinkles his nose slightly and looks away. “You want a fast and exciting life with _someone else?_ ”  
“I wanna drink champagne all day and be rich.”  
“Liar,” you smile.  
Jack chuckles and leans his head back against the back of the sofa, staring up at the glittering chandelier hanging from the ceiling above him. “Maybe I want something different. Something I’m not bored of yet. I’m bored, always bored. Nothing is ever enough.”  
“Then find something that doesn’t bore you.”  
“I have.”  
“Oh yeah?” you say. “What is it?”  
He looks at you sidelong, a knowing look in his eyes.  
Well, this is quite the development, no?  
You almost hope he’s not hinting at you - that you’ve done your job poorly and he's onto you. That he doesn’t like you at all. Then it would be easier when the time comes to stab him in the back and run. You’re no fool; you know a man like Jack doesn’t get to where he is without being stabbed in the back once or twice before. You also know that he doesn’t get where he is without stabbing a few backs of his own. But the idea of plunging that metaphorical knife into recently healed wounds doesn’t make you feel too good. How many people has he had to watch leave? Would one more finish him off? Would you be able to live with leaving him completely ruined in your wake, all for a few poxy passcodes?  
You swallow hard, fighting the lump in your throat. “Ah,” you say, suddenly shy.  
This is what you wanted - this was the plan. He likes you, you’ve succeeded.  
So why does it feel like your heart is splintering?  
“Jack, I -”  
“Don’t say anything,” he says, eyes still closed. He winces uncomfortably. “You don’t have to rub it in.”  
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you smile.  
He cracks open an eyelid then moves forward, slides across the sofa towards you and lays his head in your lap. You can’t help but smile, dammit. Even now, it feels great to be wanted by him. To have him rest his head on your knees and snuggle into you. You slide your book out from underneath his head and balance it on the arm of the sofa. With the thumping in your chest - which hopefully he can’t hear or else it's all over - you resign yourself to running your fingers through his hair.  
And then it happens.  
A knock at the door pulls the both of you from your thoughts and it takes a few moments before Jack drags himself up off the sofa and slopes over to the door. You watch over the back of the sofa, an uneasy sense of trouble stirring in your gut.  
And as Jack opens the door, the pair of you come to realise that you should have just called it quits that night Jack left you in the corridor. You should have said 'screw the codes' and gone home; left Jack to a life with his girlfriend and his butler and his champagne.  
“Am I interruptin' a business call?” Nisha asks, standing in the doorway with her eyes obscured by her dusty old sheriff’s hat. Your heart stops dead in your chest when she tilts her head upwards to look directly at you, eyes dark and wicked. “Or are you just screwing my boyfriend for fun?”


End file.
